20 March 2011
We have now less than 500nm from Grenada having had seventy two hours of fast sailing in steady winds and dare I say it, lovely weather. The convoy is making good progress too. Every morning at the beginning of the 9am SSB radio net, Graham of Eowyn gives the fleet an update of their position and progress. The fuel transfers were completed successfully, albeit in lumpy seas. They should soon benefit from the greatly improved sailing conditions that we are now experiencing.
The saga of the anemometer continues.....
A reply from B&G is not good. The repaired unit does not come under warranty. So our new unit which failed after five months was two months outside the warranty, and now just returned from repair having only lasted five miserable days will be yet another bill. They have got you every which way.
Pirates of the Caribbean.
We have heard from Graham (Eowyn), who knows the area well, that it is unwise to sail between the islands of Trinidad and Tobago. He has warned us of two pirate attacks in the last year. Yes, there is piracy in the Caribbean too and reported incidents are becoming more frequent. We had an email for our BWR cruising companions, Penny and Pete of Innforapenny. They tell us that all the boats on the current BWR are awaiting a ship to transport their yachts home. On the one hand we are happy to hear that. We were particularly concerned for our lovely Miss Tippy family who we met in Gibraltar. Yes, it will be a big concern to many how they are going to pay for this, but what cost is human life? It will be a huge disappointment for all the participants who must now feel cheated out of the completion of their circumnavigation. Their 'once in a life time' trip has been dramatically and inexorably cut short.
On the 22nd January 2009, the Gulf of Aden was declared a war zone. I would not choose to go mountaineering in Afghanistan any more than I would want to sail through this area so I cannot understand why these sailors still want to do just that. Pirates are now holding a total of 31 vessels and 688 hostages. Add to that the latest family of seven and the capture of the Panamanian-flagged, with three Romanians, one Russian and nineteen Filipinos bulk carrier M/V Dover. There has been no communication with the vessel since it was pirated. Type in on Google, 'latest news on Danish hijacked yacht', and you can read one hundred and fifty three comments over 47 pages on peoples' opinions on how to deal with the Somalians. It makes interesting reading. The first one reads, 'STOP BOATING NEAR SOMALIA..... it's that simple'. The last one, 'sailing around unmolested in international waters is a human right'.
The problem should have been dealt with long, long ago and now it is too late. No, it is never too late but how will it be resolved. Now that the pirates have the mother ships there is nothing to stop them spreading further east, further west, further south. If they can take yachts near the Seychelles, they can go a little further to the Maldives. The horizon is roughly 30 to 35nm, and it is a big ocean out there. The high speed ribs can disappear over the horizon within one hour. The ocean does not have a border control. But what they have got are 32 vessels and 716 hostages whose lives are cheap. They have slowly, systematically outwitted all the navies of the world and the amazing thing is that it all started out as poor fishermen who became hungry for more and the mind now boggles as to how powerful, how successful how utterly ruthless, how highly organised they have become. And who is to stop them? It seems that they are unstoppable, it seems that they rule the seas of the north Indian Ocean. It seems that way because they can hold to ransom over 700 innocent lives. The worrying thing is that if other countries see how utterly successful these pirates have been then who is to say that others might not 'have a go'. David and I have made our decision, we are going home.....
Susan Mackay